Vallejo's Hostess thrift store gets new life as talks resume

Shoppers are seeking famous snack cakes and taking?advantage of deeply slashed prices at Vallejo's Sonoma Boulevard Wonder Hostess Thrift Store on Monday after last week's announcement that Hostess may be going out of business.
(Rachel Raskin-Zrihen/Times-Herald)

Although it looked over the weekend like Vallejo's Wonder Hostess Thrift Store, Inc. would close for good as its parent company appeared headed for the scrap heap, its fate is now less certain.

On Monday, a bankruptcy judge ordered the firm and its striking union members to try again to reach an agreement.

The Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which represents 5,000 of the 100-plus-year-old firm's 18,500 employees, went on strike Nov. 9 over company-imposed pay cuts and other concessions.

"Everything is on hold," Vallejo store manager Toni McClinton said. "A judge is saying the company and the bakers need to renegotiate."

On Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in New York told the two sides to meet with a mediator, which they are expected to today.

All weekend, though, McClinton said she was under orders "to break it all down" and sell everything.

"We had been planning to close Saturday, but now we don't know," McClinton said. "It's more hopeful. It's something. But, I'm not trying to get my hopes up."

None of this had any bearing on the wave of customers that have descended on the unimposing, nearly 40-year-old storefront since Friday, McClinton and other employees there said.

"We are never this busy," she said. "This is like triple our busiest day, and this is nothing compared to how it was Friday. It was shoulder to shoulder the first couple of days. There have been lines around the block. They tried to climb the back fence. It was scary, really."

Product has been flying off the Sonoma Boulevard store's shelves, with the iconic Twinkies, cupcakes and such being the first to go, employees said.

Former Vallejo resident Francesca Derbignay, now of Concord, said she rushed to the store when she heard her favorite pastries might disappear forever. She expressed frustration that a contract dispute might deprive her of these goodies.

"So, that's why I'm never going to get a Twinkie again?" she asked. "I saw it on the news, and that's why I'm here. I have a couple of other places to try."

Derbignay said she's seen some of these snack cakes selling for high prices online.

It's a good thing, since the Twinkies and other snack cakes were gone by Friday morning, two other store employees said.

"I came in to see if they had any Twinkies or cupcakes," Vallejo native Patricia Carr said, who, finding none, decided to stock up on bread and other products which were on sale Monday.

"It's about getting the good stuff while it's still here. I've been coming to this store since I was a kid. We used to come here after school and get cupcakes or pies."

Even if Hostess goes out of business, its popular brands will likely find a second life after being snapped up by buyers. The company says several potential buyers have expressed interest in the brands. Although Hostess' sales have been declining in recent years, the company still does about $2.5 billion in business each year. Twinkies alone brought in $68 million so far this year.